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      The Fate of the Met Opera’s Fall Season Lies in Its Orchestra Pit

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      The company has reached deals with the unions representing its chorus and stagehands. Now, to reopen in September, it needs to make a deal with its musicians.When the Metropolitan Opera’s stagehands finally returned to work last week after an agonizingly long furlough that was followed by a seven-month lockout as they negotiated a new contract with pay cuts, they found a time-capsule backstage.The wings were crammed with the mammoth sets of the operas that were in rotation when the pandemic forced the Met to abruptly close its doors on March 12, 2020: “Der Fliegende Holländer,” “Werther,” and “La Cenerentola,” which had been scheduled to open that night. All had to be carted away and placed in storage so the company could begin preparing to reopen in September after the prolonged shutdown.The stagehands returned after reaching a deal in a dramatic all-night bargaining session earlier this month in List Hall, the small auditorium where the Opera Quiz is held during the Met’s Saturday matinee radio broadcasts. Management and representatives of the stagehands’ union, Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees — all of whom were required to be vaccinated to attend negotiating sessions — talked through the night, capping the deal with a 7 a.m. handshake.“We were coming down to the wire,” said James J. Claffey Jr., the president of Local One. “If talks had dragged on any longer it may have been impossible to prepare the opera house for a September opening.”James J. Claffey Jr., president of Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, outside Lincoln Center in May.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe deal with the stage hands, which followed one that was struck in May with the union representing the Met’s chorus, soloists, dancers, actors and stage managers, increases the likelihood that the Met will be able to reopen on schedule after one of the most trying periods in its history. But a significant obstacle remains: The company has yet to reach a deal on the pay cuts it is seeking from the musicians in its orchestra, who went unpaid for nearly a year after the company closed.“The Met has a simple decision to make,” Adam Krauthamer, the president of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, which started negotiating with the opera company more than three months ago, said in a statement. “Do they want to continue to have a world-class orchestra? If so, they will need to invest accordingly.”The Met, which said that it lost $150 million in earned revenue during the pandemic, and is concerned that it could be some time before its box office revenues return to prepandemic levels, has said that it needs to cut the pay of its workers in order to survive. Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, initially sought to cut the payroll costs for its highest-paid unions by 30 percent, which the company said would effectively cut take-home pay by around 20 percent. (Last week, the Met learned that it would receive $10 million from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program, an expected boost from the federal government that has been delayed by bureaucratic mishaps.)In the stagehands’ absence, the opera house fell into some disrepair. Amr Alfiky/The New York TimesThe first of the Met’s three major unions to reach an agreement on a new contract was the American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents chorus members, soloists, dancers and stage managers, among others. The salary cuts fell far short of the management proposal — under the agreement most types of employees will initially see 3.7 percent cuts to their pay — but the deal saves a significant amount of money by moving members to the union’s health insurance plan and reducing the size of the full-time regular chorus..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The details of the agreement with Local One — including how long and lasting the pay cuts will be, and whether there will be changes to work rules or other cost savings — will not be released until July 18, when the union’s members vote on whether to ratify it.In the stagehands’ absence, the opera house fell into some disrepair. Some wheels on the wagons that haul sets and scenery had gone flat. The hydraulics system was in serious need of maintenance. At one point during the shutdown, two scenic backdrops fell to the ground.The Occupational Safety and Health Administration received notice that the backdrops had fallen, as well as a report of mold at the base of the orchestra pit, according to a letter from the agency to the Met. The Met said it had responded to the government inquiry and that the case had been closed; it denied that there had been mold in the orchestra pit.The company typically spends its summer preparing for the new season, including by holding technical rehearsals of new productions, adding to the pressure to reach a deal with the stage hands.But the successful negotiations did not entirely stave off delay and cancellation. Because the stagehands are starting work later than normal, the Met’s technical rehearsals must be moved from the beginning of August to the end of the month; as a result, the Met has decided to cancel one of its fall season operas, “Iphigénie en Tauride” which was supposed to run from Sept. 29 through Oct. 15, the company said. The season is scheduled to open on Sept. 27 with “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” the first time the Met is mounting an opera by a Black composer.The orchestra pit at the Met during the pandemic shutdown.Victor Llorente for The New York TimesThe Met said in a statement, “We’re pleased that our stagehands will now be immediately returning to work and that we have a clearer path to opening our season on schedule in September.”The deal reached with the American Guild of Musical Artists is likely to set the pattern for the amount of cost savings with other unions. Part of the guild’s deal included a provision that if the other unions struck deals that save the Met less money, proportionally, than in the guild’s contract, the guild will recoup the money back. That means the Met’s negotiators will feel limited in how much they can offer the other unions.Still, not all guild members are happy with the deal. Soloists, who will see their pay cut by a significantly higher percentage, largely voted against the plan, but their opposition was not enough to forestall ratification.While the pressure was on the stagehands to return to work as soon as possible, the musicians have more breathing room. At the core of these negotiations is a battle to maintain the work rules that musicians have fought for over decades. The relationship between the company and the union members was tested during the pandemic, when players went without pay for nearly a year and some were forced to move out of the New York City area to save money or to contemplate selling their prized instruments.If the Met, which works with 15 unions, can attain agreements with the three major locals, it will have a clear path to reopening on schedule, but there will likely still be more negotiating to be done. The unions that represent scenic artists and box office staff also have contracts up for negotiation.Carl Mulert, the national business agent for Local 829 of United Scenic Artists, said that the negotiations will start out from a place of tension after the Met outsourced some of the union members’ work overseas and across the country as a result of the stagehand lockout.“The Met has so alienated people and so angered the people who have dedicated their lives to this organization that it’s going to be even harder to make a deal,” he said. “The good will we might have had eight months ago is gone.” More

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      Met Opera Strikes Deal With Stagehands Over Pandemic Pay

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      The company now has agreements with two of its three largest unions, opening a path to reopening on schedule in September.The Metropolitan Opera has reached a tentative agreement for a new contract with the union that represents its stagehands, increasing the likelihood that the company will return to the stage in September after its longest-ever shutdown.The deal was reached early Saturday morning, and the union is planning to brief its leaders and members after the Fourth of July holiday, said a spokesman for the union, Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. The union and the company declined to share details of the deal, which must be voted on by the union’s members.The company’s roughly 300 stagehands were locked out late last year because of a disagreement over how long and lasting pandemic pay cuts would be. But the opera house is in desperate need of workers to ready its complex operations if it is to reopen in less than three months. The pressure on the talks increased as the two sides negotiated for nearly four weeks.The Met, which has said that it has lost more than $150 million in earned revenues since the pandemic forced it to close in March 2020, has asked for significant cuts to the take-home pay of the members of its unions. Peter Gelb, the company’s general manager, has said that in order to survive the pandemic and prosper beyond it, the company must cut payroll costs for those unions by 30 percent, effectively cutting take-home pay by around 20 percent. Union leaders have resisted the proposed cuts, arguing that many of its members already went many months without pay.A spokeswoman for the Met declined to comment on the deal.Because of the Local One lockout, the Met outsourced some of its set-building work to Wales and California, a move that angered union members who struggled during the pandemic. Those sets have been shipped to New York City, where many hours of labor are still needed to get productions up and running.Of the other two major Met unions, one, which represents the orchestra, is still in negotiations. The contract with the other, the American Guild of Musical Artists, which includes chorus members, soloists and stage managers, saved money by modestly cutting pay, moving members from the Met’s health insurance plan to the union’s, and reducing the size of the regular chorus. The projected savings fall short of Mr. Gelb’s demand for a 30 percent payroll cut. More

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      Actors' Equity and Producers Clear Major Hurdle to Touring Shows

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      Under the agreement that will pave the way to reopening the shows, touring company members will be required to be fully vaccinated.Broadway producers and the labor union representing stage actors have reached an agreement on health protocols for touring shows that should allow hundreds of performers to return to work at theaters around the country beginning this summer.The 17-page agreement says that producers must require all members of the traveling company to be fully vaccinated and mandates free weekly virus tests. Also: “absolutely no interaction” will be permitted between performers and audience members.The union, the Actors’ Equity Association, announced the touring agreement with the Broadway League in an email to its 51,000 members Monday evening.The agreement does not apply to shows on Broadway — the rules for those are still being discussed — and it covers only actors and stage managers, not the many other theater workers represented by different labor unions. But it is a significant development for an industry that has been dark for 15 months, and gives a first indication of the safety measures producers and performers are envisioning.“This new set of protocols is another step toward the safe reopening of our industry in full,” the union email said, “and we’re excited to see where this leads us.”The Broadway League also welcomed the agreement. The League’s president, Charlotte St. Martin, said the deal followed several months of negotiations, and had been adjusted to reflect “changing guidelines, science and laws.”“It was great to work with Equity to help bring tours back and keep the employees safe,” she said.Touring shows are a major part of the commercial theater ecosystem. According to the Broadway League, 18.5 million people saw touring shows in about 200 North American cities during the 2018-2019 season, and those tours grossed $1.6 billion.Tours have been completely shut down throughout the pandemic, but many have announced plans to get back on the road. “Wicked” is planning to restart its tour in early August at Dallas’s Music Hall at Fair Park, while “Hamilton” is planning to resume performances later that month in Los Angeles and San Francisco; many other shows are planning fall performance dates around the country.The union said that safety protocols will continue to be adjusted as the public health situation evolves. But for now, the rules are quite detailed, covering everything from backstage signage to hand hygiene, mask laundering and prop disinfection, in an effort, the agreement says, “to minimize and mitigate the risk of Covid-19 transmission during a tour.”The rules require mask-wearing and social distancing “except when doing so is incompatible or interferes with their job responsibilities or part of the performance during the tour such as performing onstage.” And stage-dooring is out: “Autograph signings, meet-and-greets and backstage tours are strictly prohibited.”Some of the rules are quite detailed. There is a ban on self-serve buffets. Water dispensers should be contactless. Hair and makeup designers are to wear masks plus face shields plus gloves, and must change their gloves each time they work with a different cast member.Each touring company is to have a Covid-19 safety manager. Actors and stage managers who do not follow safety protocols can be fined and, after repeated violations, fired.The vaccine mandate allows company members to request accommodations for “a qualifying disability or a sincerely held religious belief,” but the agreement says it is up to producers whether to grant such accommodations. As for states where vaccine mandates are not allowed: “The League and Equity will determine the appropriate Health & Safety protocols.”The agreement has a few things to say about audience members as well. Venues must require that patrons be masked, and all patrons must be at least six feet from the conductor (if there is an orchestra pit) or the stage.The union and the producers also reached separate agreements outlining safety protocols for developmental work (closed-door rehearsal or performance sessions that producers and creators use to assess shows that are still being written and revised) and auditions. More

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      Mixing Healing and Strife, the Met Opera Sings Again

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      The company’s continuing labor tensions hovered over two consoling concerts featuring its orchestra and chorus.On Sunday evening, 430 days after the coronavirus pandemic closed the Metropolitan Opera, the company returned.Members of the Met’s orchestra and chorus, conducted by its music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and joined by four soloists, twice presented a 45-minute program for an audience of 150.The location wasn’t the company’s home at Lincoln Center; instead, the concerts were held at the Knockdown Center, a door factory turned rough-hewed art and performance space in Queens. But these were truly, finally Met forces, brought together amid the contentious labor disputes that still threaten the company’s official reopening, planned for September.“What a privilege it is to say good evening to you, to welcome you here,” Nézet-Séguin told the audience before beginning the concert. The purpose, he added, was primarily to “resume what we do” — that is, to make music. But the performances were also intended as an expression of gratitude to essential workers; some tickets were set aside for emergency medical staff affiliated with Mount Sinai’s hospital in Queens.Owens sang an aria from Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte.”Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesNézet-Séguin, left, conducted as Costello sang.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesHovering over the concerts were the Met’s continuing labor tensions. The company’s closure has cost it some $150 million in revenue, and its many union workers were furloughed early in the pandemic. Peter Gelb, the general manager, has, like administrators at performing arts institutions everywhere, been trying to exact long-term concessions from the Met’s labor force, which the unions are strongly resisting.Just days ago, the Met reached a deal with the union representing its chorus, dancers and some others. But talks with the orchestra musicians, who agreed in March to begin accepting some payments in exchange for returning to the bargaining table, are ongoing. And on Thursday, the union representing the stage hands, who have been locked out since December, held a boisterous rally outside Lincoln Center.Without glossing over the strife, the Queens concerts (I attended the second) came across as a genuine gesture of good will and shared artistic commitment. Nézet-Séguin told the crowd that he and the artists had tried to devise a program that reflected the hardships we’ve all endured, but also offered comfort and hope.The program also made it clear that the Met is attempting to address longstanding issues of inequity brought to the forefront of the nation’s consciousness in months of demonstrations against racial injustice last year. Three of the four superb solo singers were Black, and the offerings included an aria from Terence Blanchard’s opera “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” which is planned to open the Met’s season in September — the first work by a Black composer ever presented by the company.Blue sang the tender “Ave Maria” from Verdi’s “Otello.”Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesAustin sang an aria from “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” the Terence Blanchard opera planned to reopen the Met in September.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesOn Sunday the young baritone Justin Austin sang “Peculiar Grace,” in which Charles, the main character in the opera — which is based on a memoir by Charles M. Blow, an opinion columnist for The New York Times — thinks back to his troubled youth, growing up poor in Louisiana, “a Black boy from a lawless town,” he sings in the words of Kasi Lemmons’s libretto.“Where everyone carries a gun,” Austin sang with burnished sound and vulnerability,” “I carried shame in a holster ’round my waist.”The concert opened with the 12 choristers and 20 orchestra players giving a soft-spoken account of the poignant “Lacrimosa” from Mozart’s Requiem. Then the soprano Angel Blue brought radiant sound and aching sensitivity to the “Ave Maria” from Verdi’s “Otello.”Next came several excerpts from Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte,” starting with the overture, which here sounded less an introduction to a comedic romp than a sublime prelude to a tale of a quest for wisdom, purpose and love. The young quester, Prince Tamino, sings an aria of smitten devotion to an image of the lovely Pamina, touching music sung ardently here by the tenor Stephen Costello. And when the stentorian bass-baritone Eric Owens sang Sarastro’s “In diesen heil’gen Hallen,” whose German words translate to “Within these sacred portals revenge is unknown,” seemed fitting for the Knockdown Center, which felt like a spacious yet intimate community sanctuary.An audience of about 150, included some tickets reserved for emergency workers from Mount Sinai’s hospital in Queens, was allowed into the concerts.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThe program continued with Blue and the choristers giving a serene account of “Placido è il mar” from Mozart’s “Idomeneo”; Blue and Costello in a duet from Verdi’s “La Traviata”; Blue and the chorus in the consoling “Laudate dominum” from Mozart’s “Vesperae Solennes de Confessore”; and, to end, Owens and the chorus in the affirming final scene of “Die Zauberflöte.”The Queens concerts were not the only demonstration on Sunday of the Met trying, in the face of continuing hardships from the pandemic, to keep its mission going. Typically, the finals of the company’s National Council Auditions attract a large, enthusiastic audience to the opera house, where 10 or so young finalists in this prestigious competition perform two arias each onstage, with the orchestra in the pit.This year the entire competition, which has been renamed for the Met donors Eric and Dominique Laffont, took place online. On Sunday, 10 impressive finalists performed live from various locations across the United States — as well as two from Seoul, where it was early in the morning. Rather than a full orchestra, each singer was accompanied by a pianist; not surprisingly, the quality of the transmissions varied, and assessing these young voices remotely hardly compared with hearing them at the house. I did not envy the judges.Raven McMillon, a soprano from Baltimore, was among the five winners of the Met’s annual young artists competition.via Metropolitan OperaStill, the five winners all came across as gifted singers with great potential: Emily Sierra, a mezzo-soprano from Chicago, who brought a rich, secure voice to arias from “Die Fledermaus” and “La Clemenza di Tito”; Raven McMillon, a soprano from Baltimore, who sang radiantly in selections from “Cendrillon” and “Der Rosenkavalier”; Duke Kim, a tenor from Seoul, who was excellent in Tamino’s aria from “Die Zauberflöte” and gleefully tossed off the nine high C’s of “Ah! mes ami” from “La Fille du Régiment”; Emily Treigle, a mezzo-soprano from New Orleans, who gave assured accounts of arias from “Orfeo ed Euridice” and “La Clemenza di Tito”; and Hyoyoung Kim, a coloratura soprano from Seoul, who seemed set for a big career singing from “Lakmé” and “Rigoletto.”The other, also worthy finalists were Brittany Olivia Logan (soprano), Erica Petrocelli (soprano), Timothy Murray (baritone), Murrella Parton (soprano) and Jongwon Han (bass-baritone).You couldn’t help but think that several of them will end up singing someday with the company at the Met’s theater. It was a prospect that made reopening the house an even more exciting and urgent matter. More

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      Met Opera Protest: Union Rallies Against Proposed Pay Cuts

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      The Metropolitan Opera hopes to reopen in September after its long pandemic closure, but simmering labor tensions have called that date into question.As New York prepares for the long-awaited reopening of its performing arts sector, with several Broadway shows putting tickets on sale for the fall, it is still unclear whether the Metropolitan Opera will be able to reach the labor agreements it needs to bring up its heavy golden curtain for the gala opening night it hopes to hold in September.There have been contrasting scenes playing out at the opera house in recent days.On the hopeful side, the Met is preparing for two concerts in Queens on Sunday — the company’s first live, in-person performances featuring members of its orchestra and chorus and its music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, since the start of the pandemic. And it recently reached a deal on a new contract with the union that represents its chorus, soloists, dancers and stage managers, among others.But the serious tensions that remain with the company’s other unions were put on vivid display outside Lincoln Center on Thursday, as hundreds of union members rallied in opposition to the Met’s lockout of its stagehands and management’s demands for deep and lasting pay cuts it says are needed to survive the pandemic. The workers’ message was clear: their labor makes the Met what it is, and without them, the opera can’t reopen.The Met’s stagehands have been locked out since December. James J. Claffey Jr., president of their union, Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, said that the season cannot open without them.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“That’s not the Met Opera,” said James J. Claffey Jr., president of Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents Met stagehands, pointing over to the opera house. “The greatest stage, the largest stage — it’s empty. It’s nothing without the people that are right in front of me right now.”Masked stagehands, musicians, ticket sellers, wardrobe workers and scenic artists packed the designated rally space, greeting each other with elbow bumps after more than a year of separation. They wore union T-shirts and carried signs with messages like, “We Paint the Met” and “We Dress the Met.” The same chant — “We are the Met!” — was repeated over and over throughout the rally.The protest made clear the significant labor challenges that the Met must overcome to successfully return in the fall.Although the opera season is not scheduled to begin until September, the company will need to reach agreements with Local One, which represents its stagehands, much sooner to load in sets and hold technical rehearsals over the summer. The Met has been hoping to bring a significant number of stagehands back to work beginning in June, but Claffey said union members were holding out for a labor agreement.The Met locked out its stagehands in December after contract negotiations stalled. The union has been fiercely opposed to the Met’s assertion that it needs to cut the payroll costs for its highest-paid unions by 30 percent, with an intention to restore half of those cuts when ticket revenues and core donations returned to prepandemic levels (the Met has said the plan would cut the take-home pay of those workers by about 20 percent).“Regardless of the Met’s plans, Local One is not going to work without a contract,” Claffey said in an interview. “There’s a lockout when you didn’t need us, but when you really need us, it’s going to transition from a lockout to a strike.”Although the Met recently struck a deal with the union representing its chorus, tensions remain high with the unions representing its orchestra and stagehands.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe Met said in a statement on Thursday that it had “no desire to undermine” the unions it works with but that it had lost more than $150 million in earned revenues since the pandemic forced it to close, and that it needs to cut costs to survive. The statement said the Met had “repeatedly” invited the stagehands’ union to return to the bargaining table.“In order for the Met to reopen in the fall, as scheduled,” the statement said, “the stagehands and the other highest paid Met union members need to accept the reality of these extraordinarily challenging times.”The rally was organized by Local One, which represents the Met’s roughly 300 stagehands. Speaking outside the David H. Koch Theater because metal barriers blocked the path to the Metropolitan Opera House, union leaders railed against the monthslong lockout that has prevented its workers from returning to the Met in full force.“A lot of us stagehands have had to pivot or leave the industry entirely,” said Gillian Koch, a Local One member at the rally. “And we are showing up to say that is not OK, and we all deserve to have our careers after this pandemic.”Tensions rose even higher when the stagehands learned that the Met had outsourced some of its set construction to nonunion shops elsewhere in this country and overseas. (In a letter to the union last year, Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, wrote that the average full-time stagehand cost the Met $260,000 in 2019, including benefits; the union disputes that number, saying that when the steady extra stagehands who work at the Met regularly, and sometimes full-time, are factored in, the average pay is far lower.)The stagehand lockout has not been absolute. Claffey said that at the Met’s request, he has allowed several Local One members to work at the Met under the terms of the previous contract, particularly to help the union wardrobe staff who are on duty.But although the Met has now reached a deal with the American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents its chorus, it has yet to reach one with Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, which represents the orchestra. Both groups were furloughed without pay for nearly a year after the opera house closed before they were brought back to the bargaining table with the promise of partial pay of up to $1,543 per week.Adam Krauthamer, the president of Local 802, pointed out that because of the Met’s labor divisions, other performing arts institutions were ahead of the Met in reopening.“Broadway is selling tickets; the Philharmonic is doing performances; they’re building stages right before our eyes,” Krauthamer said in a speech at the rally. “The Met is the only place that continues to try to destroy its workers’ contracts.”The rally had the backing of several local politicians who spoke, including Gale Brewer, the Manhattan borough president, and the New York State Senators Jessica Ramos and Brad Hoylman, who had a message for the Met’s general manager: “Mr. Gelb, could you leave the drama on the stage, please?” More

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      Met Opera Announces Its First Live Concerts Since Shutdown

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      Despite ongoing labor tensions, members of the company’s orchestra and chorus will perform with soloists and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.The Metropolitan Opera will perform again for a live audience, 430 days after the coronavirus shut down its theater.Members of the company’s orchestra and chorus, joined by prominent soloists and led by its music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, will give two concerts at the Knockdown Center in Queens on Sunday, the Met announced on Wednesday. The concerts will go on despite continuing labor tensions at the Met, which have threatened the intended reopening of its Lincoln Center home in September.Scheduled for 6 and 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, the program, called “A Concert for New York,” includes selections by Mozart, Verdi and Terence Blanchard, whose “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” is planned to reopen the Met on Sept. 27 and will be the company’s first opera by a Black composer. The soloists for the Queens performances will be Angel Blue, Stephen Costello, Justin Austin and Eric Owens; 12 Met choristers and 20 orchestra musicians will take part.Whether the Met will be able to reopen in September is not yet clear. While New York officials have announced plans to loosen pandemic restrictions around the performing arts — prompting major sectors, like Broadway, to lay out their plans for a fall return — the Met, which says that it has lost $150 million in earned revenues since it was forced to close, has been seeking pay cuts from its workers, like other arts organizations. Many of its unions are resisting, and the company has locked out Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents its stagehands.The union representing the Met’s chorus members, soloists and some other workers recently struck a deal on a new contract, though the details will not be made public until the union members vote on ratifying it later this month. The orchestra players’ union, Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, is still in negotiations with management over how deep and lasting pay cuts will be.In March, after nearly a year of unpaid furlough, the musicians and chorus members agreed to begin receiving up to $1,543 per week in exchange for returning to the table to negotiate longer-term contracts. For the concerts on Sunday, each union performer will be paid an additional $1,000.Since last summer, the Met has livestreamed pay-per-view recitals featuring soloists and musicians from outside its orchestra, drawing criticism from furloughed orchestra members. The orchestra began staging its own virtual concerts and collecting donations to distribute to musicians in need. The concerts on Sunday will be the first in-person performances under the Met’s brand since March 11, 2020.“As the city’s largest performing arts company, we are determined to participate in New York’s reopening,” Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said in a statement, “even though there is much still to be settled with our unions and in preparing the opera house for next season.”In keeping with the state’s current rules, Sunday’s 45-minute concerts will each have an audience of 150 people, who must provide proof of vaccination, a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours of the show or a negative antigen test within six hours of the start time. Tickets will be distributed by a lottery system, including a portion set aside for emergency medical workers with Mount Sinai’s hospital in Queens.Because the concerts are taking place in Queens, Local One does not have jurisdiction over the stagehand work. That work instead goes to Local Four of the union, though Local One has agreed to make a limited number of its workers available to load large instruments, music stands and chairs at the Met.While the concerts promise a display of unity amid labor tensions, union members are planning a rally on Thursday in front of Lincoln Center, where they are expected to voice opposition to the Local One lockout and the Met’s proposed pay cuts, which the company says are necessary for it to survive the pandemic and beyond. More

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      in Music

      Metropolitan Opera Reaches Deal With Union Representing Chorus

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      Labor troubles have cast the company’s planned reopening in September in doubt; two other major unions have yet to reach deals.The Metropolitan Opera, whose efforts to cut the pay of its workers to help it survive the pandemic had left it locked in a bitter dispute with its unions, threatening to derail its planned September reopening, announced Tuesday that it had reached a deal with the union representing its chorus and other workers.The union, the American Guild of Musical Artists — which also represents soloists, dancers, actors and stage managers — is the first of the three largest Met unions to reach such a deal after months of sometimes-bitter division between labor and management over how deep and lasting the pandemic pay cuts should be. The Met had been seeking to cut the payroll costs for its highest-paid unions by 30 percent, which it said would cut the take-home pay of those workers by around 20 percent.The terms of the deal — the culmination of 14 weeks of negotiations — were not immediately disclosed; the company said they would remain confidential until the union held a vote to ratify the agreement on May 24.In recent weeks, New York officials have taken steps to loosen the restrictions around live performance, and in recent days several major Broadway shows have announced their intention to resume performances in September and October. But whether the Met can reopen in September, after the pandemic forced the opera house to remain closed for more than a year, depends on how quickly it can resolve its remaining labor problems.Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said in a statement that he was grateful to the guild for “recognizing the extraordinary economic challenges the Met faces in the coming seasons.”Leonard Egert, the executive director of the guild, said in a statement that the new contract would “ensure the Met becomes a more equitable and better workplace.”“We are pleased to arrive at a new deal during the most trying time in performing arts’ history,” he said.The Met’s deal with the guild is just one step toward reopening. The union that represents its stagehands, Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, has been locked out since December, after the two sides failed to reach an agreement on pay cuts. Without its union stagehands, starting performances will likely be impossible. And the union representing the Met’s orchestra is still negotiating its contract.The opera company, the largest performing arts organization in the nation, says that it has lost $150 million in earned revenues — including ticket sales to the opera house and to its cinema simulcasts, as well as its shop and dining revenues — since the coronavirus pandemic forced it to close its doors more than a year ago. If the Met reopens in September, it will have gone 18 months without live performances in its opera house.The Met’s management has argued that such a long period of closure — and the uncertainty over the return of its audiences in an era where it could take years for New York City tourism to rebound to prepandemic levels — requires it to seek financial sacrifices from its employees. It has said that half of its proposed pay cuts would be restored once ticket revenues and core donations returned to prepandemic levels. A number of major American orchestras and opera companies have already negotiated pay cuts with their workers to help them survive the pandemic.After the opera house was closed, the members of its orchestra and chorus went unpaid for nearly a year. Then the company brought them to the bargaining table with the offer of up to $1,543 a week, less than half of what they are typically paid.On Thursday, union members are planning to rally in front of Lincoln Center as a display of solidarity during tense negotiations with management. Union leaders have accused the Met’s management of using the pandemic as a reason to force concessions from labor.If approved, the agreement with the guild will take effect on Aug. 1; for now, unions members will continue to receive partial payments. More

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      in Theater

      ‘Why Are We Stuck?’ Stage Actors Challenge Their Union Over Safety

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      A dust-up in Dallas and a 2,500-person petition signal that many performers believe their representatives are keeping them from getting work.The play was announced: “Tiny Beautiful Things,” an improbably moving stage adaptation of a wildly popular advice column. Four actors were chosen: members of a company that had worked together for years. And the producer, Dallas Theater Center, had developed a 45-page plan to keep the actors safe, in part by filming and streaming their work, with no live audience.But after weeks of back and forth, Actors’ Equity, the national labor union, introduced what the theater saw as a new wrinkle. The cast would have to take 80-minute breaks every 80 minutes to make up for what the union viewed as inadequate air filtration in the rehearsal and performance halls.The theater’s leaders gave up. Early this month, just five days before rehearsals were to begin, they canceled the project, at least for now.That would have been the end of that, one of scores of abandoned theater projects during this pandemic, but for one unexpected development. The cast, furious that their own union, which represents actors and stage managers, was making it impossible for them to do the show, spoke up. One of them took to social media to express his anger. And, when he did so, actors from around the country chimed in.“The reason I spoke out is that something is deeply wrong with our union,” said the actor, Blake Hackler. “When every other industry has adapted to keep going, why are we stuck here?”Now the 51,000-member union, which for the last year has barred almost all stage work in the United States, is in the cross hairs, under fire from some of its own members as it tries to navigate a path that keeps them safe and helps them earn a living.Quietly simmering frustrations erupted publicly last week, when more than 2,500 union members signed a letter, circulated by a Broadway performer and signed by Tony winners and Tony nominees, plaintively asking, “When are we going to talk about the details of getting back to work?”The union’s leadership, while proud of its performance during the pandemic, is acknowledging the concerns.“I don’t mind people being frustrated — I’m frustrated too,” said the union’s president, Kate Shindle, an actress who, like most of her members, has been unemployed for the last year.But Shindle defended the union’s intensive focus on health. “How many people on ventilators would be OK? How many people with lifelong, career-ending lung damage would be OK?” she said. “To me, the answer is zero.”Health and safety signs posted on the door outside Dallas Theater Center.Cooper Neill for The New York Times“There is no conceivable reason our union would want to keep our members from working if working is safe,” Shindle added. “At the end of the day, it’s the virus that’s the problem.”And the virus is still obviously a problem: Just this past weekend, the Park Avenue Armory in New York was forced to postpone its first live show with a paying audience in more than a year, a new dance piece by the famed choreographer Bill T. Jones, when three members of the company tested positive for the coronavirus. And 54,000 new cases of the virus are still emerging each day in the United States.But with film and television production underway, vaccine distribution speeding up, and gathering places from schools to restaurants to sports arenas opening, many performers and producers say the union has been too slow to adapt.“What appeared to be a well-intentioned initiative to keep their membership safe has turned into a unilateral, nonresponsive and opaque process which has expanded its jurisdiction far beyond any reasonable bounds,” said David A. Cecsarini, the producing artistic director of Next Act Theater in Milwaukee.Citing air conditioning system requirements that, he said, “are more stringent than those of hospitals,” he said the union “continues to move the goal posts of safety protocol, requiring more radical standards with each edition of its guidelines.”Cecsarini is among a number of theater leaders, particularly from small and mid-sized theaters outside New York, who throughout the pandemic have had difficulty working with Equity. And, after a year in which many were afraid to voice their concerns publicly, they are now speaking up.“From the beginning I’ve been pretty disappointed in Equity’s ability to pivot with the rest of the industry,” said Ethan Paulini, who is the producing artistic director of Weathervane Theater in Whitefield, N.H.., and the associate director of Out of the Box Theatrics in New York.After protracted negotiations, Ethan Paulini, the producing artistic director of Weathervane Theater in Whitefield, N.H., got the OK from Actors’ Equity to present a show there last summer.Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist for The New York TimesPaulini, an Equity member for 18 years, has seen the union from many vantage points. His theater in New Hampshire last summer was the first to get pandemic permission for an indoor production of a multiperformer musical, and his New York company is now streaming a production of “The Last Five Years.”Pulling any of it off has been a struggle, he said. For example, his New York production was only approved the day after rehearsals were to begin. He also objected to the union’s prohibition against the use of public transportation by actors, which, he said, was not realistic in New York.“Equity was just so slow,” he said, “and even at times very obstructionist.”David Ellenstein, the artistic director of North Coast Repertory Theater in Solana Beach, Calif., said that his theater had made streaming work during the pandemic under contracts first with SAG-AFTRA, the television and film actors’ union, and then with Equity. When Equity assumed jurisdiction, “the demands were above and beyond what SAG-AFTRA asked us to do,” he said.Ellenstein, who has been an Equity member for four decades, said he is hopeful that relations may be improving, but that some of the union’s safety requirements are “over the top.” Like what? “Having to have special air purifiers in apartments where actors are staying by themselves,” he said, “and the implication that people working with the theater should not associate with anyone else while they’re working on the play. I don’t know of any other business doing that.”Actors have become unusually wiling to speak up, worried that their union is lagging.Davon Williams, an actor in New York, said the union is facing an “uprising” in part because its efforts stand in contrast to what’s happened with other entertainment industry unions. “People are antsy,” he said. “When you look to your left and your right at our sister unions, these people are working.”The union points out that television and film studios generally have more money than theater companies, which allows them to afford a higher level of testing and other safety provisions. And, they say, television and film productions are often more contained than stage productions — there is no live audience present, for one thing.The union said in a recent Medium post that over the course of the pandemic it has permitted more than 120 live shows — although it appears that only 22 theaters have been allowed to present these shows to live audiences; the union also says it has approved agreements for digital productions that have been used 700 times.Among them: the Alliance in Atlanta, which staged an outdoor production of “A Christmas Carol” with actors performing in individual shipping containers.“I am well aware that my colleagues and our colleague theaters are having real challenges,” said the Alliance’s artistic director, Susan V. Booth. “I also know that we were able to put a show up, and because of the rigor that the union and we provided, we were able to do so safely.”Elsewhere, actors say they are worried that the difficulty with negotiations could endanger theaters, especially outside New York.“I know for sure theaters are putting proposals out there and not getting responses,” said Kurt Boehm, an actor in Washington. “To me our producers and our theaters are not our enemies, they’re our friends, and if they don’t survive there’s no union to be had.”Several actors said that, by refusing to OK theater productions with detailed safety protocols, the union is forcing them to take jobs that are even more dangerous. Boehm is working as a salesman at a Williams-Sonoma store; Kristine Reese, an actress who moved from New York to Atlanta during the pandemic, is teaching.“They say they don’t want anyone to get sick doing a musical, but because I can’t do a very high-protocol musical, I have to do another job, and those jobs are way riskier than doing a show would be,” Reese said.The union has agreed to schedule a national town hall in response to the recent upset; the petition-signers, led by Timothy Hughes of “Hadestown,” are asking that they be allowed to moderate the virtual conversation.In a joint interview, Shindle, the union president, and Mary McColl, the executive director, said they would strive to be clearer about what the union is doing. But they also said that until actors and stage managers are vaccinated, vigilance is warranted.“The vaccine is the thing that is going to get us back on our feet,” McColl said, “and back on the stage.”At Dallas Theater Center, where “Tiny Beautiful Things” fell apart, the two sides don’t even agree on what went wrong; the actors say the union refused to approve the show, while the union says the theater withdrew its request for approval. (Kevin Moriarty, the theater’s artistic director, declined to comment.)Unlike most stage performers, the Dallas actors still receive a salary as members of a company. But the cancellation still stings.“This whole experience has been frustrating and disappointing,” said Tiffany Solano, who was slated to be in the cast.Now the venue is offering patrons a 40-minute outdoor walk inspired by fairy tales. It was devised by the acting company but features no live performers.Michael Paulson reported from New York and Katy Lemieux reported from Dallas. More